Sepultura - Morbid Visions (1986)

Back in 1985 the thrashin’ metal approach was becoming a more extreme musical creature and the death metal faction was set in motion when a young band from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, named Sepultura released a split album with fellow Brazilians, Overdose. Alongside Sepultura were such extremists as Possessed, Sodom, Kreator, Destruction, and Slayer, who at the time were sometimes labeled as death metal rather than thrash metal due to their faster intense sound, which included hastily pounded drums, frantic guitar riffing, maniacal vocals and lyrics dealing with death, evil, Satan, war, violence and other topics your mother probably wouldn’t approve of.

‘Morbid Visions’ came out a year later on a small Brazilian label called Cogumelo, and the youngsters Paulo Jr., Igor, Max, and soon to be replaced guitarist Jairo, had themselves one powerful debut album. Morbid Visions exhibits all the great qualities of an early death/thrash metal album, including the classic crude production qualities. Max’s vocals came in the form of a growly psycho voice, which is surely one of the earliest examples of death metal singing. Igor’s a fantastic drummer and even on these early recordings the man displays a decent amount of talent though the raw production seems to hinder things a little. while lead guitarist Jairo would be replaced by Andreas Kisser by the time ‘Schizophrenia’ came out, I must admit he was a rather good guitarist, and that’s probably why he continued playing guitar with Overdose, Eminence and The Mist.

The songs generally don’t differ too much, but that matters very little as all of them are speedy extreme death/thrash metal songs that keep you hooked for the entire thirty foure minutes. Of course some people will complain about the crude production as the album was recorded in a 16 track studio only, but this was completely normal in these old days. Aside from that though this is an excellent look at thrash at its most extreme and a good example of where death metal began and where it would soon be going.